A rich ink control enables a user to input information to a computer without using a keyboard. For example, a user may use a stylus or other pointing device to write and draw on a touch-sensitive screen of a handheld or palm-sized computing device. A tablet may also be used, such as one connected to a personal computer. For a user, taking notes or drawing sketches with a rich ink control is very much like writing or drawing on paper, and thus a rich ink control provide a convenient means for applications to accept input from a user without using a keyboard.
Rich ink technology stores information about stylus or other pointer movements, such as vector information, along with enhanced information such as pen width, color, pressure, timing, strokes, angle of stylus, and so on. As a result, a digital rich ink data document provides a number of advantages over a conventional image data file. The vectors, pressure, timing, angle of the stylus, and other additional information stored in the digital rich ink data document can be analyzed for improved handwriting recognition. A digital rich ink data document also provides possibilities for many improvements in display, including higher resolution, editing, smoothing, and/or alteration of individual elements, for example.
While digital rich ink thus has many benefits over bitmapped image file formats and the like that may alternatively store handwritten input, a specialized rendering engine is needed to convert digital rich ink data into a readable, viewable form. Many computing devices, such as small hand-held devices, do not include such an engine.
As a result, the use of digital rich ink is limited by the number and types of devices that are able to interpret it. For-example, if a digital rich ink document is communicated via e-mail or another method to another machine, the remote computer may or may not have the specialized engine which can interpret the digital rich ink data and render an image therefrom. Therefore, the sender is essentially left with two choices. First, the digital rich ink data can be transmitted under the assumption that the recipient can read the file, risking the possibility that the recipient does not have a reader that is capable of reading the digital rich ink data. Second, the document can be forwarded under a widely-accepted image format, e.g., bitmap (BMP) files, GIF, TIF files and so on that most machines can interpret, whereby it is highly likely that the recipient will be able to read the document. However, the recipient will not get the benefit of digital rich ink technology, even if the user has the appropriate rendering engine.